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Why corporate media propagandizes and won't expose the "emperor has no clothes" obvious: They're in collusion with government "leadership" is the prima facie explanation. Let's examine this important question more closely.

In a piece reminiscent of classic "60 Minutes," USC journalism student Matt Schrader exposes the dirty side of parking enforcement and street cleaning in downtown Los Angeles. Schrader found that while parking enforcement is out in droves ticketing cars, and mostly on street cleaning days (making the city $15,000 an hour!), the streets they're patrolling aren't even being cleaned. The best line of the piece is from a guy who got ticketed on one of those streets: "They have the manpower to ticket you, but they don't have the manpower to actually do the job."

In a piece reminiscent of classic "60 Minutes," USC journalism student Matt Schrader exposes the dirty side of parking enforcement and street cleaning in downtown Los Angeles. Schrader found that while parking enforcement is out in droves ticketing cars, and mostly on street cleaning days (making the city $15,000 an hour!), the streets they're patrolling aren't even being cleaned. The best line of the piece is from a guy who got ticketed on one of those streets: "They have the manpower to ticket you, but they don't have the manpower to actually do the job."

At an extravagant hotel gilded just before the Great Depression, corporate executives from the tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, State Farm Insurance, and other corporations were joined by their "task force" co-chairs -- all Republican state legislators -- to approve "model" legislation. They jointly head task forces of what is called the "American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC).

"Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power"

Though the conservative media are fueled by overhyped, often-false, phony "scandals," every so often a story comes along that is so mind-bogglingly absurd that it exposes in no uncertain fashion the entire conservative media for what it is: a propaganda machine far more interested in pushing pre-determined narratives than conveying accurate information.

Throughout this year I've devoted substantial attention to WikiLeaks, particularly in the last four weeks as calls for its destruction intensified.  To understand why I've done so, and to see what motivates the increasing devotion of the U.S. Government and those influenced by it to destroying that organization, it's well worth reviewing exactly what WikiLeaks exposed to the world just in the last year:  the breadth of the corruption, deceit, brutality and criminality on the part of the world's most powerful factions.

Here we go again. The government and corporate media are pumping out more propaganda on vital economic statistics to mask the severity of our economic crisis. Deceptive unemployment, GDP, inflation and poverty measures are easily exposed with some research and a closer look at the data. The latest deception comes from the Census Bureau in their annual poverty report, which is now uncritically being "reported" on throughout the corporate media and echoing throughout online news outlets as well. The new Census data reveals that a stunning 46.2 million Americans, 15.1% of the population, lived in poverty in 2010. This is an increase of 2.6 million people since 2009. While these are staggering statistics that represent the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic year-over-year increase, it significantly undercounts the total. The Census Bureau poverty rate is a highly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology. The Census measures poverty based on costs of living metrics established in 1955 - 56 years ago. They ignore many key factors, such as the increased costs of medical care, child care, education, transportation, and many other basic expenses. They also don't factor geographically-based costs of living. For example, try finding a place to live in New York that costs the same as a place in Florida. A much more accurate measurement of poverty, which factors in these vital cost of living variables, comes from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Unlike the Census poverty measure, which gets significant coverage throughout the corporate media, the NAS measurement gets little, if any, mainstream media coverage.

Charles and David Koch seem less confident these days. The brothers - who inherited money from their dad and grew it into America's largest collection of dirty industries - have decided they need to fight back. That's not surprising. Since Koch-sponsored secret meetings were revealed, secret planning with Supreme Court Justices was exposed, and secret funding of right wing groups became apparent, Americans have begun to wonder just how much influence these guys have purchased. Read more: http://technorati.com/politics/article/the-koch-brothers-are-getting-nervous/#ixzz1IXD3a4Zw

What Really Happened? Stella Liebeck, 79-years-old, was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson's car having purchased a cup of McDonald's coffee. After the car stopped, she tried to hold the cup securely between her knees while removing the lid. However, the cup tipped over, pouring scalding hot coffee onto her lap. She received third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body, necessitating hospitalization for eight days, whirlpool treatment for debridement of her wounds, skin grafting, scarring, and disability for more than two years. Despite these extensive injuries, she offered to settle with McDonald's for $20,000. However, McDonald's refused to settle for this small amount and, in fact, never offered more than $800. The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages - reduced to $160,000 because the jury found her 20 percent at fault - and $2.7 million in punitive damages for McDonald's callous conduct. (To put this in perspective, McDonald's revenue from coffee sales alone was in excess of $1.3 million a day.) The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $480,000, but did state that McDonald's had engaged in "willful, wanton, and reckless" behavior. Mrs. Liebeck and McDonald's eventually settled for a confidential amount. The jury heard the following evidence in the case: McDonald's Operations Manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit; Coffee at that temperature, if spilled, causes third-degree burns (the worst kind of burn) in three to seven seconds; Third-degree burns do not heal without skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability of the victim for many months, and in some cases, years; The chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and bio-mechanical engineering at the University of Texas testified that this risk of harm is unacceptable, as did a wid